REVIEW: Canon HV20 HD Camcorder
A good friend of mine just got a Hv20 camcorder and allowed me to give it a good looking over and ran it through it's paces. Let me start with a quick summary.... This is a must buy camcorder. It's feature set equal that of the Canon GL2 and then exceeds them. Adding in things like grid lines and other nice things.
Starting with features. Out of the box it's configured for the typical dumb-old consumer. Point and shoot without any frills or advanced items on that cause the typical consumer to ball up on the floor crying. It shoots video very well in this form, has really good low light capability for a HD 1080i single CCD camera. Some CCD graininess shows up at the lower light levels below 100lumens but it's acceptable for being a single ccd. Color saturation is almost equal to the Canon XL2 3 ccd camera which is incredibly surprising. The things I do not like is the microphones are on the top which promotes crappy audio, and the zoom controls are incredibly tiny. No real way to zoom in or out smoothly with the control.
Now, turning on all the features like 70%ire Zebra, viewfinder gridlines for 3rds alignment, audio level meter, as well as setting levels manually and even has a MANUAL FOCUS wheel to the front of the camera body. Now this camera is starting to really shine. Outdoor recording in incredible, no real grain in higher light levels. battery life with the standard battery is short.
If you get this camera Two things you MUST buy right away. the MA50 stereo shotgun microphone from canon to fix the audio problem, and the high capacity battery to make it far more acceptable in battery life. Onboard audio absolutely stinks, you have to get the Microphone to bring the audio quality up.
Starting with features. Out of the box it's configured for the typical dumb-old consumer. Point and shoot without any frills or advanced items on that cause the typical consumer to ball up on the floor crying. It shoots video very well in this form, has really good low light capability for a HD 1080i single CCD camera. Some CCD graininess shows up at the lower light levels below 100lumens but it's acceptable for being a single ccd. Color saturation is almost equal to the Canon XL2 3 ccd camera which is incredibly surprising. The things I do not like is the microphones are on the top which promotes crappy audio, and the zoom controls are incredibly tiny. No real way to zoom in or out smoothly with the control.
Now, turning on all the features like 70%ire Zebra, viewfinder gridlines for 3rds alignment, audio level meter, as well as setting levels manually and even has a MANUAL FOCUS wheel to the front of the camera body. Now this camera is starting to really shine. Outdoor recording in incredible, no real grain in higher light levels. battery life with the standard battery is short.
If you get this camera Two things you MUST buy right away. the MA50 stereo shotgun microphone from canon to fix the audio problem, and the high capacity battery to make it far more acceptable in battery life. Onboard audio absolutely stinks, you have to get the Microphone to bring the audio quality up.
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